How tough are cold cathodes?

[TekieB]

^??

I'm making a lightsaber out of one for a show I am doing. And it needs to be thrown across stage. The question is: if I make some sort of shock absorber, will it break?

 

[_Sin_]

not tough at all, very thin glass/plastic.

why dont you get a tube of acrylic or whatever tough plastic you can makybe frost it up and shine some leds to make it glow?

 

[XBLiNKX]

those things break easy. I rested my hand on one while working in my computer and it bent maybe a CM and the inside broke. Your definitly not gonna be able to throw it across a room

 

[Burning Phoenix]

instead of making the saber tougher why not make the targeted landing a soft area. I mean like setup to land on maybe a pile of clothing or pile of styrofoam peanuts. Make it something that can be made to fit in the surroundings.

 

[RS3RS]

Originally posted by Burning Phoenix
instead of making the saber tougher why not make the targeted landing a soft area. I mean like setup to land on maybe a pile of clothing or pile of styrofoam peanuts. Make it something that can be made to fit in the surroundings.

And, at that, even if it breaks after it hits, who cares? You've still got the shot in the air, as long as it doesn't break mid-air. As long as you have another one in case you have to do more shots?

 

[TekieB]

Originally posted by RS3RS
And, at that, even if it breaks after it hits, who cares? You've still got the shot in the air, as long as it doesn't break mid-air. As long as you have another one in case you have to do more shots?

Well, it's a 2 night show. And if worse come to worse, cathodes are cheap on fropzenCPU

 

[theNoid]

WHY in Gods name would you use a fragile ccfl for a lightsaber, then attempt to toss it across the room ??? Mod, delete this thread, please for the love of [H]!

 

[PlaneCrazy]

Dude, just get real lightsabres like I did.....



Yes, I was bored... I'm the guy that gets killed.

 

[SonicTron]

mount the ccfl in another larger plastic tube, profit.

 

[caino]

yah...crap...just looked at my rig and noticed the light wasnt on

*click*

nothing.

must of f*cking cracked it when i was testing out this xp1800 that ended up being dead.

damn ebay bums...never installed my ass - had two chipped corners on the core. says it was fresh from an RMA.....grr.

*grumbles*

sorry about venting...

 

[FLECOM]

Originally posted by PlaneCrazy
Dude, just get real lightsabres like I did.....



Yes, I was bored... I'm the guy that gets killed.

heh, i gotca beat

http://flecom.net/[H]OCP/hamlet-saber-fight-clip.web.wmv

thats just part of a movie i made for my senior project in english... the effects shots were photoshop filmstrips, 45 of them were for those two sabre scenes, the sabre scene was 1800 frames... and it took about 15~30 seconds to do each frame... depending on how close i was to loosing conciousness from lack of sleep... total file size was almost 4GB in just photoshop files, dont even want to think of how much space the uncompressed AVI's take up...

heres an idea of how i did it... notice the "preview" window of the file on the right

never had time to add it the "sparks" of the saber hits tho... sigh...

in response to the real question

do not use CCFL's

they will break i can almost guarantee it... especially if your going to fight... we used 1/2" pvc and we broke two pipes...

if you do anything use clear acrylic tubes/rods, sand them and load up on LED's

 

[SarverSystems]

I'm thinking EL wire would work better. And that stuff is nearly indestructible.

 

[ra-odin]

Geez FLECOM, talk about using the wrong tool for the job

 

[PlaneCrazy]

FLECOM - heh, nice.. Looks good! For the sparks, I used lens flares in PS.

And yeah, I did mine the same way. Rotoscoping a filmstrip file.. Sucks though, because all I have is the web version. I had a better copy but it got lost in a HD failure . This one was UL'd to the web.

How about Back to the Future?

 

[Shinare]

heh you guys are such nerds. *lol* I must admit, tho, that if I had this kind of technology for my senior AP English project (way back in 1991) then I probably would have done the same thing! Unfortunatly all we (5 of us worked on this project) had was a sony VHS camcorder (about the size of a small briefcase on your shoulder) and an audio tape player to overdub the move when music would be played. Our project was about medieval Europe and was done very "Pythonesque" (yes that is now an official word, look it up here!) complete with costumes and weaponry (we were all in an AD&D group as well so we pretty much all had that stuff). Of couse we used an old Audi to take us back in time! (no special effectys tho unless you count me as cameraman almost getting run over by the idiot driver.)

Edit: I almost forgot to say that the fastest computer any of us had was probably a tie between my friend's 286-8MHz and my Macintosh SE)

 

[TekieB]

Well, the part we were putting the cathode in is UV reactive and I realized today that we have two of these And it looks amazing them glowing from 20 feet away.

 

[STRESSTEST]

Originally posted by TekieB
^??

I'm making a lightsaber out of one for a show I am doing. And it needs to be thrown across stage. The question is: if I make some sort of shock absorber, will it break?

HOly shit, you're that Starwars Kid we were all laughing at last year, in that avi clip, right?

 

[Shinare]

Originally posted by TekieB
Well, the part we were putting the cathode in is UV reactive and I realized today that we have two of these And it looks amazing them glowing from 20 feet away.

Just make sure that ABSOLUTLY NOTHING else on teh stage, and I mean nothing is UV reactive or is white or has been washed in any popular laundry detergants or you will have a real mess on your hands lighting wise. You can make some really cool effects with those with UV reactive paints on props and backdrops as well as stage scenery. But like I said before, the big problem is making sure your costumes (or any other unwanted part) doesn't end up taking away from the effect you are trying to produce with them. But, on the other hand, if you wanted to you can paint a big UV reactive red "asshole" on the back of that guy you hate's costume. That would be hillarious. (if theres a guy you hate in the play)

Edit: I also forgot to mention that you will need to dim down the rest of the stage lights for those to have any effect.

 

[FLECOM]

Originally posted by ra-odin
Geez FLECOM, talk about using the wrong tool for the job

actually if you want it to look good its one of the best tools for the job...

 

[Mikesta]

It will very easily break.. I remmeber seeing a light saber online for sale why don't you just go buy one lol.

 

[TekieB]

Originally posted by Mikesta
It will very easily break.. I remmeber seeing a light saber online for sale why don't you just go buy one lol.

The "Real" ones would be half the shows budget, plus it needs to be "cheasey" to go along with the show.

Thanks for all the input guys

Not to be arrogant but theatre is my other life, but i've been trying to "intergrate" the two.